Do 97% of experts agree with the IPCC that human CO2
emissions are causing dangerous global warming?

Climate Movement activists (even at NASA)
frequently claim that "97%" of qualified experts agree
with the basic premise of climate alarmism: that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are
causing a dangerous warming of the earth's climate, which will have severe consequences
for mankind and the Earth's ecosystems, unless CO2 emissions are quickly
and drastically curtailed.

That "97%" claim is significant, not for what it reveals about the science
of climate change, but for what it reveals about the Climate Movement spin machine.
It turns out to be a classic example of the Big Lie.

Doran's 97% claim is based on the answers to just two questions, both of which were so uncontroversial
that even I, and most other climate change skeptics & "lukewarmers," would answer "yes" to them.

Worse yet, 97.5% of those who responded were excluded after their responses were received.
Of 3146 responses received, only 79 responses were considered.

Plus, to reach the 97% threshold on the 2nd question, Doran excluded 40% or 50% of the remaining
skeptics, i.e., 2 of the 3 respondents (out of 79) who gave "wrong" answers to the first question.

76 of 79 (96.2%) answered "risen" to the first question: "When
compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen,
fallen, or remained relatively constant?"

Two of the 79 apparently answered "remained relatively constant" to the first question, so they
were not asked the second question, and Doran did not count them among the skeptics when calculating
his 97%. 75 of the remaining 77 (97.4%) answered "yes" to the second question:
"Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in
changing mean global temperatures?"

That means only 74 or 75 of 79 (93.7% or 94.9%) answered both "risen" to the first question
and "yes" to the second question.

And that's in spite of the fact (3146-79) / 3146 = 97.5% of the respondents were excluded after
the responses were received.

The first question asked respondents to compare current temperatures to the depths of the Little
Ice Age ("pre-1800s"), and asked whether it's warmer now. Well, of course it is! What's remarkable is
that they didn't get 100% agreement. 3 of 79 apparently didn't agree even with that.

The second question asks whether any human activities significantly affect global temperatures.
That encompasses both GHG-driven warming and particulate/aerosol-driven cooling. It could also be
understood to include Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects.

Since just about everyone acknowledges at least one of those effects, I would have expected nearly
everyone to answer "yes" to this question. Yet 2 of 77 apparently did not.

It is unfortunate that they didn't ask an actual question about Anthropogenic Global Warming. They
should have asked something like, "Do you believe that emissions of CO2 from human activities,
such as burning fossil fuels, are causing dangerous increases in global average temperatures?"
or (para­phras­ing a pol­i­ti­cian) "Do you believe that climate change is real, man-made and dangerous?"

Note: If you read the Doran article, you
might wonder whether they actually did ask a question like that, because the Doran article
mentions that "up to nine" questions were asked, but never tells us about the other seven. So I
bought
the Zimmerman report, to find out. It turns out that other questions were mostly just about
demographics. These were the nine questions:

Q1. When compared with pre-1800's levels, do you think that mean global temperatures
have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
1. Risen
2. Fallen
3. Remained relatively constant
4. No opinion/Don't know

Q3. What do you consider to be the most compelling argument that supports your previous
answer (or, for those who were unsure, why were they unsure)? [This
question wasn't asked if they answered "remained relatively constant" to Q1]

“To test consensus position on a particular topic of science, correct
methodology requires genuine experts of that very field to be excluded from the
poll.

“If you wanted to know, for example, [whether] homeopathy was science or
pseudoscience, [to decide if] it deserved financial support from government on
taxpayer's money, you’d never ask a group of homeopaths if they believed substances
diluted until not a single molecule of the supposed agent remained in them had still
beneficial effect, would you? Even if you would and found 98% consensus on this issue
among them, it would be utterly meaningless.

“On the other hand, asking experts of neighboring disciplines like doctors,
pharmacologists, biologists, nurses and the like makes sense.

“It is the same with climatology. As soon as the scientific value of the basic
paradigm of a field, in this case fitting multiple computational models of high
complexity to a single run of a unique physical instance, is questioned, it is up to
experts of neighboring fields to decide its validity. They may not be able to do their
own research in that field, but they do have ample background to understand and evaluate
the methods applied in the field in question.”
- Berényi Péter 2/17/2013

“Neighboring disciplines” of climatology are fields like meteorology, physics
and geology. (Meteorologists are particularly well-equipped to recognize the difference between
climate and mere weather.) So what do scientists in neighboring disciplines think of
the climate scare?

Outside of academia and government institutions, surveys of scientists reveal widespread
skepticism toward climate alarmism. Here are some examples:

From the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society we learned
that a 2009 survey found
most
broadcast meteorologists
say that they disagree
with the IPPC claim that humans are primarily responsible for recent global warming. ↑

A 2013 survey of all
AMS Professional Members (not just broadcast meteorologists) yielded similar results. Of 1821
Members who completed the survey, there were 1203 Meteorologists & Atmospheric Scientists,
232 Climatologists, and 386 others. (33 other Members returned incomplete surveys.)
Of the 1821 Members who returned complete surveys, 52% believe global warming is real and
mostly caused by humans. Of the 1435 Climatologists, Meteorologists & Atmospheric
Scientists
just
under 50% believe global warming is real and mostly caused by humans,
and of the 1203 Meteorologists & Atmospheric Scientists only
45.5%
believe global warming is real and mostly caused by humans.
(Unfortunately, the survey didn't ask how many of those Members who think global warming is
real & man-made also think it is a problem. Most scientists who are skeptical of climate
alarmism accept that global warming is real, and at least partially man-made, but also think
it is modest and non-threatening; I'm one of these “lukewarmist” scientists. -DB)
↑

A 2016 survey
of broadcast meteorologists by George Mason University found similar results: 46% of the
surveyed meteorologists believe that climate change over the past 50 years has been primarily
or entirely due to human activity, 22% think it is more or less equally caused by human activity
and natural events, and 24% think the change has been primarily or entirely due to natural
events. ↑

A 2008 survey
of members of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Professional Engineers, Geologists
and Geo­phys­icists of Alberta (APEGGA), who, like mete­or­ol­o­gists,
are mostly privately employed, found that:

“27.4% believe it [climate change] is caused by primarily natural
factors..., 25.7% believe it is caused by primarily human factors..., and 45.2% believe that
climate change is caused by both human and natural factors.”↑

Subsequently, a 2012 study of
APEGGA's members (based in part on that survey) found that
only 36%
of them were in general agreement with the IPCC position "that climate change is
happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or
central cause." 51% think there's little or no danger from anthropogenic climate
change, either because human activity has little effect and/or because the effects are
benign. An additional 5% estimate the danger as moderate but say the debate is not settled.
(Note: APEGGA shortened its name to the “Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists
of Alberta” [APEGA] in 2012.) ↑

Hundreds of highly qualified scientists have
signedThe Manhattan Declaration On Climate Change, declaring their belief that global
warming is not a crisis, and CO2 is not a pollutant. ↑

Over 30,000 American scientists (including engineers in relevant disciplines)
have signed a statement affirming their belief that:

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane,
or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of
the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific
evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural
plant and animal environments of the Earth.”↑

“97% agree that 'global average temperatures have increased'
during the past century. But not everyone attributes that rise to human activity.
A slight majority (52%) believe this warming was human-induced, 30% see it as
the result of natural temperature fluctuations and the rest are unsure.”↑

May, 2013 brought
another attempt
by Climate Movement activists to revive their discredited "97% consensus" claim.
But this time, the author, John Cook, didn't count scientists, he counted papers,
and announced that 97% of relevant climate science papers “endorsed the consensus
position that humans are causing global warming.”

In 2015 researchers in The Netherlands and Australia actually made a serious attempt to survey scientists
about their views on climate change, rather than simply conduct an exercise in propaganda generation.

Unfortunately, they made a glaring methodological error: they biased their sample by restricting it
to practicing climate scientists, rather than including scientists from neighboring
disciplines. Nevertheless, their survey is the most comprehensive and informative to date.

Their first question asked to what extent human greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the Earth's
warming trend since the mid-20th century. They found that 65.9% of the respondents believe that human
GHG emissions are responsible for at least 51% of the warming trend since the mid-20th century.

Their survey was very long; for more details you may read their report,
here.